POLLYANNA GROWS UP (Completed)

Chapter 16- WHEN POLLYANNA WAS EXPECTED

All Beldingsville was fairly aquiver with excitement. Not since Pollyanna Whittier came home from the Sanatorium, WALKING, had there been such a chatter of talk over back-yard fences and on every street corner. To-day, too, the center of interest was Pollyanna. Once again Pollyanna was coming home--but so different a Pollyanna, and so different a homecoming!

Pollyanna was twenty now. For six years she had spent her winters in Germany, her summers leisurely traveling with Dr. Chilton and his wife. Only once during that time had she been in Beldingsville, and then it was for but a short four weeks the summer she was sixteen. Now she was coming home--to stay, report said; she and her Aunt Polly.

The doctor would not be with them. Six months before, the town had been shocked and saddened by the news that the doctor had died suddenly. Beldingsville had expected then that Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna would return at once to the old home. But they had not come. Instead had come word that the widow and her niece would remain abroad for a time. The report said that, in entirely new surroundings, Mrs. Chilton was trying to seek distraction and relief from her great sorrow.

Very soon, however, vague rumors, and rumors not so vague, began to float through the town that, financially, all was not well with Mrs. Polly Chilton. Certain railroad stocks, in which it was known that the Harrington estate had been heavily interested, wavered uncertainly, then tumbled into ruin and disaster. Other investments, according to report, were in a most precarious condition. From the doctor's estate, little could be expected. He had not been a rich man, and his expenses had been heavy for the past six years. Beldingsville was not surprised, therefore, when, not quite six months after the doctor's death, word came that Mrs. Chilton and Pollyanna were coming home.

Once more the old Harrington homestead, so long closed and silent, showed up-flung windows and wide-open doors. Once more Nancy--now Mrs. Timothy Durgin--swept and scrubbed and dusted until the old place shone in spotless order.

"No, I hain't had no instructions ter do it; I hain't, I hain't," Nancy explained to curious friends and neighbors who halted at the gate, or came more boldly up to the doorways. "Mother Durgin's had the key, 'course, and has come in regerler to air up and see that things was all right; and Mis' Chilton just wrote and said she and Miss Pollyanna was comin' this week Friday, and ter please see that the rooms and sheets was aired, and ter leave the key under the side-door mat on that day.

"Under the mat, indeed! Just as if I'd leave them two poor things ter come into this house alone, and all forlorn like that--and me only a mile away, a-sittin' in my own parlor like as if I was a fine lady an' hadn't no heart at all, at all! Just as if the poor things hadn't enough ter stand without that--a-comin' into this house an' the doctor gone--bless his kind heart!--an' never comin' back. An' no money, too. Did ye hear about that? An' ain't it a shame, a shame! Think of Miss Polly--I mean, Mis' Chilton--bein' poor! My stars and stockings, I can't sense it--I can't, I can't!"

Perhaps to no one did Nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that Thursday morning. At the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a "Master Jimmy--er--Mr. Bean--I mean, Mr. Pendleton, Master Jimmy!" with a nervous precipitation that sent the young man himself into a merry peal of laughter.

"Never mind, Nancy! Let it go at whatever comes handiest," he chuckled. "I've found out what I wanted to know: Mrs. Chilton and her niece really are expected to-morrow."

"Yes, sir, they be, sir," courtesied Nancy, "--more's the pity! Not but that I shall be glad enough ter see 'em, you understand, but it's the WAY they're a-comin'."